The Best Free Media Players On All Platforms

• I recommend using MPV to play audio and video on Linux, Mac and Windows
• I recommend using VLC on Android and iOS
• To play cloud-based music, I recommend using CloudBeats on Android iOS
• If you prefer a dedicated audio player, I recommend Foobar2000 on Mac and Windows, and Audacious on Linux. See this article for more details.

Here are some details on those apps:

MPV (Audio and Video Player)

Platform support: Windows, Mac and Linux.

MPV is a free audio and movie player. This player is fast and lightweight. It supports many video or audio formats. It has its own built-in codecs.

It is a good replacement for VLC — and MPV tends to perform better. However, VLC is much more customizable.

Link: MPV

VLC Media Player

Platform support: Windows, Mac and Linux, iOS, Apple TV, Android and Windows Phone.

VLC is a cross-platform, open-source and configurable media player.

It also plays DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.

The is a mobile version available for iOS and Android.

Foobar2000 (Audio Player)

Platform Support: Windows and Mac

Foobar2000 is a basic freeware audio player that supports many formats and supports gapless playback

Main features:

• Supported audio formats: MP3, MP4, AAC, CD Audio, WMA, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, Speex, AU, SND and more with additional components.
• Gapless playback.
• Easily customizable user interface layout.
• Advanced tagging capabilities.
• Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component.
• Full ReplayGain support.
• Customizable keyboard shortcuts.
• Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.